Scientists Now Know How Smallpox Kills

A team of researchers working in a high containment laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, have solved a fundamental mystery about smallpox that has puzzled scientists long after the natural disease was eradicated by vaccination.: they know how it kills us. In a new research report appearing online in The FASEB Journal, researchers describe how the virus cripples immune systems by attacking molecules made by our bodies to block viral replication. This discovery fills a major gap in the scientific understanding of pox diseases and lays the foundation for the development of antiviral treatments, should smallpox or related viruses re-emerge through accident, viral evolution, or terrorist action.

"These studies demonstrate the production of an interferon binding protein by variola virus and monkeypox virus, and point at this viral anti-interferon protein as a target to develop new therapeutics and protect people from smallpox and related viruses," said Antonio Alcami, Ph.D., a collaborator on the study from Madrid, Spain. "A better understanding of how variola virus, one of the most virulent viruses known to humans, evades host defenses will help up to understand the molecular mechanisms that cause disease in other viral infections."

In a high containment laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, scientists produced the recombinant proteins from the variola virus and a similar virus that affects monkeys, causing monkeypox. The researchers then showed that cells infected with variola and monkeypox produced a protein that blocks a wide range of human interferons, which are molecules produced by our immune systems meant to stop viral replication.

"The re-emergence of pox viruses has potentially devastating consequences for people worldwide, as increasing numbers of people lack immunity to smallpox," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "Understanding exactly how pox viruses disrupt our immune systems can help us develop defenses against natural and terror-borne pox viruses."

Physicist Sees With "T-Rays"

"T-rays" may make X-rays obsolete as a means of detecting bombs on terrorists or illegal drugs on traffickers, among other uses, contends a Texas A&M physicist who is helping lay the theoretic groundwork to make the concept a reality. In addition to being more revealing than X-rays in some situations, T-rays do not have the cumulative possible harmful effects.

Alexey Belyanin focuses his research on terahertz, otherwise known as THz or T-rays, which he says is the most under-developed and under-used part of the electromagnetic spectrum. It lies between microwave radiation and infrared (heat) radiation.

Belyanin, associate professor in the Texas A&M Physics and Astronomy Department, has collaborated with colleagues at Rice University and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory to publish findings about their T-ray research in the renowned journal Nature Physics.

"THz radiation can penetrate through opaque dry materials. It is harmless and can be used to scan humans," Belyanin says. "Unfortunately, until recently the progress in THz technology has been hampered by a lack of suitable sources and detectors."

Belyanin and his team have offered hope: The researchers are able to control the T-rays by varying external parameters like temperature or magnetic field, making it possible to build THz sensors, cameras and other devices.

Traditionally, powerful photons from visible or near-infrared laser pulses are used to probe semiconductors, knocking electrons out of the atoms. Belyanin and collaborators use the less powerful T-rays instead, which only excite the waves in the electron gas because T-rays do not have enough energy to knock out electrons.

"This is as if instead of throwing a stone into a tank of water, which would create a lot of splashes, we gently vibrate one wall of the tank, sending a sound wave through the body of water and ripples over its surface," he explains.

By varying temperature and the magnetic field, scientists can tune the pulses and observe the behavior of the waves.

"This provides extremely valuable and unique information about the properties of the material, just like seismic waves tell you what is in the Earth's interior," the Texas A&M physicist points out.

"The highlight of our results is observations of interference of magnetoplasmons. By tiny changes in the applied magnetic field or temperature, we can make plasma waves amplify or cancel each other. This makes the whole sample either completely opaque or transparent to the incident THz radiation."

Belyanin believes the technology has important practical implications, such as in security work.

"Using THz cameras, we could detect weapons or drugs concealed on a human body, or look inside envelopes and boxes," he says. There are many other applications for THz radiation, including material studies, chemistry, biology, medicine."

Anthrax Alert For Heroin Users In London

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) and NHS London have confirmed that a drug injecting heroin user has tested positive for anthrax and is being treated in a London hospital.

This is the first case of anthrax seen in an injecting drug user in England since similar cases were first seen in Scotland in December 2009. Nineteen cases have so far been confirmed in Scotland. Similarities to the cases in Scotland suggest that the heroin, or a contaminated cutting agent mixed with the heroin, is the likely source of infection.

Dr Brian McCloskey, Director of the Health Protection Agency in London, said: "We are working closely with NHS London to monitor the situation. There is no evidence of person to person transmission in this case and I'd like to reassure people that the risk to the general population, including close family members of the infected patient, is negligible. It is extremely rare for anthrax to be spread from person to person and there has been no evidence of a significant risk of airborne transmission associated with the current situation in Scotland.

"While public health investigations are ongoing, it must be assumed that all heroin in London carries the risk of anthrax contamination. Heroin users are advised to cease taking heroin by any route, if at all possible, and to seek help from their local drug treatment services. Heroin users in London are strongly encouraged, as soon as possible, to find out more about the support services in their area. They can be put in touch with local drug services and receive advice by contacting Talk to Frank."

Professor Lindsey Davies, Regional Director of Public Health from NHS London, said: "I urge all heroin users in London to be extremely alert to the risks and to seek urgent medical advice if they experience signs of infection such as redness or excessive swelling at or near an injection site, or other symptoms of general illness such a high temperature, chills or a severe headache or breathing difficulties, as early antibiotic treatment can be lifesaving. This is a very serious infection for drug users and prompt treatment is crucial.

"Drug injecting is an extremely risky and dangerous practice and users are vulnerable to a wide range of infectious diseases, both from the action of piercing the skin, as well as contaminants in the drugs that they use.

"Health professionals and drug action teams in England had already been alerted to the situation in Scotland in December and we will continue to work closely with colleagues who work with drug users to monitor probable cases and raise awareness of the risks."

Development Of Helicopter That Would Investigate Nuclear Disasters

Students at Virginia Tech's Unmanned Systems Laboratory are perfecting an autonomous helicopter they hope will never be used for its intended purpose. Roughly six feet long and weighing 200 pounds, the re-engineered aircraft is designed to fly into American cities blasted by a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb.

The helicopter's main mission would be to assist military investigators in the unthinkable: Enter an American city after a nuclear attack in order to detect radiation levels, map and photograph damage.

"It's for a worst-case scenario," said project leader Kevin Kochersberger, a research associate professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Virginia Tech Unmanned Systems Laboratory. His team consists of several graduate and undergraduate students from the mechanical engineering and electrical and computer engineering departments.

Kochersberger and his team re-engineered a remote-controlled Yamaha-built Unmanned Aerial Vehicle RMAX helicopter to fly in fully autonomous mode. They also created flight control software algorithms that will direct the helicopter to radioactive sources on its own accord. To carry out various missions, the researchers outfitted the helicopter with various "plug-and-play payloads" as the vehicle's weight capacity is limited. The payloads are easily loadable and unloadable boxes that fit snugly under the helicopter's main body, carrying devices that would detect radiation levels in the atmosphere and on the ground, and take video and still images of damage. Flight control software would allow the mission to be changed mid-flight.

One payload is unique: A miniature tray-like robot on treads that can be launched via a tether wire from the helicopter to collect evidence. The helicopter would hover over the robot, and pull it back via the wire. A student team is building this robot, which will boast not only "chunk" sampling capability, but also a miniature vacuum which could suck up dust and dirt.

The robot is expected to easily maneuver any terrain, including expected bomb craters, as part of its investigation, said Michael Rose, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, from Gilroy, Calif. The team plans to make the robot water proof, in the event that it comes across water - busted water mains, lakes, rain puddles, etc. "The electronics must be protected from the harmful elements," Rose said.

The group also designed a downward-looking stereo camera system mounted to the helicopter, to image affected areas. The cameras would allow for computerized 3-D terrain mapping of affected areas, an absolute necessity to understand the characteristics of the blast. It is expected that the helicopter will have night vision capabilities, and enhanced imaging technologies that improve vision through smoke and fog as the project progresses, Kochersberger said.

The project, already funded at $735,000 with an additional $650,000 allocated for 2010, is overseen by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency and spearheaded by the Department of Energy's Savannah River National Laboratory. Plans call for the helicopters to be mission-ready in three years. Department of Defense personnel already have visited Blacksburg to watch a demonstration as the craft zeroed in on a small, planted radioactive source at Kentland Farm, several miles from the Virginia Tech campus. More testing is underway, with another DoD demonstration planned for 2010 in Savannah, Ga.

New Imaging Technology Brings Trace Chemicals Into Focus

Arizona State Univeristy scientist N.J. Tao and his colleagues at the Biodesign Institute have hit on a new, versatile method to significantly improve the detection of trace chemicals important in such areas as national security, human health and the environment.

Tao's team was able to detect and identify tiny particles of the explosive trinitrotoluene or TNT - each weighing less than a billionth of a gram - on the ridges and canals of a fingerprint. "We can easily detect the TNT traces because we combine the strength of optical microscopy, which gives spatial resolution, with the high sensitivity and selectivity of electrochemical detection," he said. Results of this research appear in the March 12 issue of Science.

Tao's work involves the application of a hybrid technique - called electrochemical imaging microscopy - developed in his lab. "We don't use electrochemistry alone," said Tao, director of Biodesign's Center for Bioelectronics and Biosensors and electrical engineering professor in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. "We combine electrochemical sensing with other techniques, including optical detection."

The technique has several advantages over more conventional methods of detection, and is a more powerful tool than either optical or electrochemical sensing alone. It is rapid and non-invasive to the chemical system it explores, and provides a detailed map of the surface under study, revealing the chemicals present at every location.

Although Tao's published results highlight the power of electrochemical imaging microscopy to uncover explosive residues, he notes that the method can be usefully applied to a full assortment of detection applications. His group is currently using electrochemical imaging microscopy to monitor the activities of living cells, as well as to detect protein biomarkers - early warning beacons that can alert clinicians to pre-symptomatic signs of disease. This could offer improved speed and a lower cost for biomarker discovery when compared with current microarray approaches. Other potential uses include detection of heavy metal ions in drinking water.

The technique dispenses with the traditional microelectrode used for chemical sensing. "The key idea here," Tao explains, "is to convert an optical signal into local electrochemical current." This is accomplished thanks to a phenomenon known as surface plasmon resonance.

In an electrode - a metal conductor through which electric current is passed - electrons move freely and oscillate in a wavelike fashion called a plasmon. Shining light on the surface plasmon causes the electrons to absorb energy and enter an excited state. Tao notes that the plasmon is exquisitely sensitive to any changes occurring near the electrode's surface. If, for example, an electrochemical reaction involving oxidation or reduction takes place (where electrons are lost or gained, respectively), the plasmon registers this change as a reflection of light (electrochemical current can be inferred from the changes in optical signals detected). The technique allows for the resolution of trace chemicals down to a small fraction of a micron in diameter.

The TNT experiments were carried out by first depositing a fingerprint on the surface of an electrode. The raised ridges of the fingerprint formed a delicate layer of protein that blocked the flow of electrochemical current, whereas the grooves allowed current to flow, providing the contrast to reveal the fingerprint in vivid relief when an electrical potential was applied.

Next, the applied potential was lowered to correspond to the specific reduction potential of TNT, at which point spots of the explosive particles appeared, providing both visual and chemical confirmation. Remarkably, the technique could successfully detect the grains of TNT, even if they were mixed with other species of particles, including traces of dust, airborn particulate matter or wax.

The research was supported through a National Science Foundation Special Creativity award. Co-authors of the study are: Xiaonan Shan, Urmez Patel, Shaopeng Wang, and Rodrigo Iglesias.

Impact Of Education, Income On Support For Suicide Bombings: Study

Conventional wisdom holds that supporters of suicide bombers are people with low educational attainment and income, so investments in education and economic development should reduce support for such attacks. But a study by two Indiana University faculty members raises questions about that approach.

In an analysis of public opinion data from six predominantly Muslim countries that have experienced suicide bombings, M. Najeeb Shafiq and Abdulkader H. Sinno show that the relationship of education and income levels to support for suicide bombing is complicated at best. Support for bombings and the influence of education and income vary greatly from one country to another; and attitudes differ significantly by whether the attacks target civilians in one's own country or foreign militaries.

Shafiq is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in the School of Education. Sinno is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences. They say the study, published in the February 2010 issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution, points to the need for carefully developed policies to address terrorism and suicide attacks.

"Each country is different, and the attitudes are different depending on the targets," Shafiq said. "By just asking about suicide bombing, you're not likely to get a very useful sense of what people think."

The study, "Education, Income and Support for Suicide Bombings: Evidence from Six Muslim Countries," relies on detailed data collected in 2005 for the Pew Global Attitudes Project. It examines attitudes in Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey, which have been hit by suicide bombings in recent years. Along with many other questions, the Pew survey asked if suicide bombings were often, sometimes, rarely or never justified, both when carried out "against civilian targets" and "against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq."

Generally speaking, the study found that people who were more highly educated were more strongly opposed to suicide bombings targeting civilians in their own countries. But support for suicide bombings against foreign targets tended to be consistent across education levels. The study also found that political dissatisfaction was a factor in respondents' attitudes, with those who felt that Islam was "under threat" more likely to support suicide bombing.

Shafiq and Sinno introduce a conceptual model to explain how education and income interact to affect support for suicide bombing. According to the model, education should reduce support for suicide bombing by instilling values and skills that provide for peaceful resolution of conflict. Higher income should discourage support for suicide bombing because wealthy people are likely to be satisfied with life and not believe that drastic measures are needed to effect change.

But education and income can also cause people to be more politically engaged and, in some cases, dissatisfied with government policies. The model shows that such political dissatisfaction moderates the extent to which education and income reduce support for suicide bombing.

The study provides some support for the findings of Princeton economist Alan Krueger, whose 2007 book What Makes a Terrorist argued that education and income were not related to support for terrorism. "At the same time," Shafiq and Sinno write, "this study reveals that the effect of education and income on attitudes depends on the country and the target of suicide bombings. Therefore, this study draws attention to the difficulty of making generalizations about the relationship between educational attainment, income, and support for suicide bombing across Muslim countries."

Shafiq and Sinno make two policy recommendations:

• Continued expansion of education should be supported, along with the adoption of peace education that discourages support for suicide bombing. The purpose is to introduce students to tactics that involve less suffering and damage to society.
  
• Governments of Muslim countries, the U.S. and other Western states should adopt policies that respect the dignity, welfare, interests and lives of Muslims, including support for trade, economic integration and cooperative security.

The Optical Dynamic Detection (ODD) Solution Provides A New And Better Way To Detect Explosives

For anyone who has spent a significant amount of time in an urban setting, the scene of a bomb squad responding to a report of a suspicious package might be all too familiar. But just how is it determined that the lunchbox left under the park bench is just leftovers - or a lethal weapon? The most common way is spectroscopy.

"Spectroscopy is good, but it only gets you so far," says Eric Houser, a program manager in the Explosives Division of the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate (S&T). The wave of the future may lie in a technology called optimal dynamic detection (ODD), which overcomes many of spectroscopy's limitations.

Spectroscopy uses the color spectrum to shed light on a package's makeup. Since it uses visible light only, spectroscopy can't see through a lunchbox, but what it can see is microscopic residue on the box's outer layer, which can provide telltale clues about what's inside.

Using spectroscopy, bomb squad personnel will beam a laser at the package, then compare the reflected "light signature" - an optical fingerprint - against a library of known signatures for chemical compounds, such as nitroglycerin. If there is nitro inside, chances are that some of it will be found in the package's residue.

This method presents two problems. First, there's distance. Many threat detection methods require either the person or the detector to be physically near the bomb, making spectroscopy extremely dangerous.

Second, approaches like spectroscopy, which rely on reflected light, often are not sensitive or selective enough, especially in the real world where chemical signatures may overlap or be contaminated. Think of light signatures as fingerprints. Capturing a fingerprint from a clean surface is not especially difficult. But in real life, surfaces are anything but clean, and dust, grease, or even ink stains can cause a backpack or lunch pail to bear small deposits of several different chemicals, each with a unique optical fingerprint. To minimize false alarms, a detector must be both sensitive and selective.

The ODD project began in the summer of 2008, when researchers from Princeton University and Los Alamos National Laboratory pitched the concept to S&T. As a result, the Directorate signed a contract to fund research at the two labs for a proof of concept. A year and a half later, after several rounds of successful tests, researchers have successfully demonstrated the science of ODD. The goal now: to develop a portable prototype in the next three years that can be field-tested.

But the real eye-opener is the science. "At this risk of oversimplifying, this is quantum control applied to explosives detection," warns Houser.

Here's how ODD works:

1. A bomb technician beams a "raw" laser pulse toward a suspicious bag, looking for a specific explosive.
   
2. The pulse passes through an electro-optical filter, gaining clarity as it is bent through lenses, reflected by mirrors and amplified by chips. When the technician tunes the laser to a new frequency, the filter reshapes the laser's pulse. As it is bent, reflected, and electronically processed, the pulse changes amplitude.
   
3. The shaped pulse hits the chemical environment around the lunchbox and excites the energy state of the material of interest, emitting an energy "signature." Since the pulse was precisely defined, so is the signature.
   
4. A second laser, called an analyzing "probe," is beamed through the excited molecules, measuring its spectrum. The probe beam passes into an electro-optical detector stationed on the other side of the target.
   
5. The pulse laser's final shape is stored and analyzed. If the signature looks like that of an explosive, it can conclusively be traced to the explosive molecules that emitted it, which may be found on the bag's fabric or zipper.

In this way, ODD reduces background signals, which interfere with the identification process of a potential bomb, and amplifies the return signal, which illuminates the threat. The light energy going in is precisely defined, which makes it easier than spectroscopy to read the energy coming out.

"In evaluating a potential bomb, you're looking for a needle in a haystack," explains Houser. "ODD helps bring the needle to the forefront."

In a word, ODD offers control. And with greater control comes greater accuracy. The result may well save precious minutes when a minute saved can means scores of lives also saved.

Rehearsing The Evacuation Of 70,000 Sports Fans In Less Than An Hour, With The Aid Of Avatars

What sports fan hasn't grumbled while waiting in a long, snaking lines to get into the stadium for the big game? It's enough to discourage even a diehard fan. But if you think it's a hassle getting into a sold-out game, imagine trying to get out after a bomb explodes - or even to get out under a bomb threat, for that matter.

Let's start with the emergency lights failing. If you're thinking of feeling your way out by the light of your cell phone, join the crowd - they're right beside you, pushing fifty-across and a thousand-deep in a stampede. It's everyone for himself.

Scenes like this may sound like a trailer for a Hollywood thriller (think Black Sunday), but their grim prospect is all-too-real. Last year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI jointly warned of terrorist interest in attacking crowded stadiums. Small wonder: A bomb or noxious plume released over a throng of captive sports fans would cause major-league mayhem and terror.

Mindful of the threat, stadium sentinels have been laying plans to manage and minimize the anarchy that would follow such an attack. Just how would authorities whisk 70,000 people out the gates and onto the roads quickly and safely? For an evacuation on this scale, there are no dress rehearsals or practice drills-just simulation software.

Now, a new breed of simulation software - dubbed SportEvac - is being funded by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) as part of the Southeast Region Research Initiative (SERRI), and developed and tested by the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety & Security (NCS4) at the University of Southern Mississippi.

"SportEvac isn't simply more realistic," says program manager Mike Matthews of S&T's Infrastructure and Geophysical Division. It will become a national standard."

Using blueprints from actual stadiums, the developers are creating virtual, 3D e stadiums, packed with as many as 70,000 avatars - animated human agents programmed to respond to threats as unpredictably as humans. Security planners will be able to see how 70,000 fans would behave - and misbehave - when spooked by a security threat.

But a SportEvac avatar need not be a sports fan. The simulation includes make-believe stadium workers, first responders, even objects, such as a fire trucks or a fan's car. SportEvac tracks them all, accounting for scenarios both probable and improbable.

Simulating thousands of people and cars can impose a crushing load on software and hardware. That's why, unlike SportEvac, most evacuation software apps are unable to simulate a crowd much larger than 5,000. For a college or NFL football game, that's bush-league.

Beyond scaling problems, earlier simulators did not account for the myriad variations that make human behavior hard to predict and human structures hard to simulate. How adversely, for example, would an evacuation be impaired if an audible were called - a wet floor, a wheelchair, a stubborn aisle-seater, a fan fetching a forgotten bag, or an inebriated bleacher bum?

Conventional evacuation simulators couldn't say. SportEvac can. And like an open-source Web browser, the SportEvac software will get better and better because it's built on open, modular code. If your IT intern creates a module that can more accurately predict parking lot gridlock, just plug it in. This also means it can be customized for any sports arena.

By simulating how sports fans would behave in the minutes following an attack, SportEvac will help security experts across the country to plan and train and answer key questions, such as:

• How can my stadium be evacuated in the shortest time?
  
• How can civil emergency workers quickly get in as fans are dashing out?
  
• How can our stadium guards and ushers provide valuable information to civil responders and assist them as the evacuation unfolds?

"Interoperability is also a key goal," says Lou Marciani, NCS4 Director, who serves as the S&T project's principal investigator. Stadium security officers can use SportEvac to rehearse and refine procedures with civil responders. During a real evacuation, guards might use the same radios as the civil responders. And for every usher with a smartphone, a "SportEvac Lite" application will graphically show where fans or cars are bottlenecked.

Drawing on actual architectural CAD data, the Mississippi researchers are creating 3D virtual models of seven of the state's college sports stadiums. This year, in summits and workshops, security teams from the university athletic departments will test and refine SportEvac, with help from local police, Mississippi Homeland Security agents, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, and security specialists from pro sports. It will then be deployed to the seven state universities. Once the schools give it the green light, S&T will make the advanced version available to other universities, pro sports venues, and amateur sports organizations.

While not quite as immersive as the recent 3-D movie Avatar, SportEvac will create a safe, virtual stadium where security teams can practice guiding fans to safety, without risking life, limb, or lawsuit.

Crowdsourcing Cell Phones To Detect Chemical Threats

Do you carry a cell phone? Today, chances are it's called a "smartphone" and it came with a three-to-five megapixel lens built-in - not to mention an MP3 player, GPS or even a bar code scanner. This 'Swiss-Army-knife' trend represents the natural progression of technology - as chips become smaller/more advanced, cell phones absorb new functions.

What if, in the future, new functions on our cell phones could also protect us from toxic chemicals?

Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate (S&T)'s Cell-All is such an initiative. Cell-All aims to equip cell phones with a sensor capable of detecting deadly chemicals. The technology is ingenious. A chip costing less than a dollar is embedded in a cell phone and programmed to either alert the cell phone carrier to the presence of toxic chemicals in the air, and/or a central station that can monitor how many alerts in an area are being received. One might be a false positive. Hundreds might indicate the need for evacuation.

"Our goal is to create a lightweight, cost-effective, power-efficient solution," says Stephen Dennis, Cell-All's program manager.

How would this wizardry work? Just as antivirus software bides its time in the background and springs to life when it spies suspicious activity, so Cell-All would regularly sniffs the surrounding air for certain volatile chemical compounds.

When a threat is sensed, an alert ensues in one of two ways. For personal safety issues such as a chlorine gas leak, a warning is sounded; the user can choose a vibration, noise, text message or phone call. For catastrophes such as a sarin gas attack, details - including time, location and the compound - are phoned home to an emergency operations center. While the first warning is beamed to individuals, the second warning works best with crowds. And that's where the genius of Cell-All lies - in crowd sourcing human safety.

Currently, if a person suspects that something is amiss, he might dial 9-1-1, though behavioral science tells us that it's easier to do nothing. And, as is often the case when someone phones in an emergency, the caller may be difficult to understand, diminishing the quality of information that's relayed to first responders. An even worse scenario: the person may not even be aware of the danger, like the South Carolina woman who last year drove into a colorless, odorless, and poisonous ammonia cloud.

In contrast, anywhere a chemical threat breaks out - a mall, a bus, subway or office - Cell-All will alert the authorities automatically. Detection, identification, and notification all take place in less than 60 seconds. Because the data are delivered digitally, Cell-All reduces the chance of human error. And by activating alerts from many people at once, Cell-All cleverly avoids the long-standing problem of false positives. The end result: emergency responders can get to the scene sooner and cover a larger area - essentially anywhere people are, casting a wider net than stationary sensors can.

And the privacy issue? Does this always-on surveillance mean that the government can track your precise whereabouts whenever it wants? To the contrary, Cell-All will operate only on an opt-in basis and will transmit data anonymously.

"Privacy is as important as technology," says Dennis. "After all, for Cell-All to succeed, people must be comfortable enough to turn it on in the first place."

For years, the idea of a handheld weapons of mass destruction detector has engaged engineers. In 2007, S&T called upon the private sector to develop concepts of operations. Today, thanks to increasingly successful prototype demonstrations, the Directorate is actively funding the next step in R&D - a proof of principle - to see if the concept is workable.

To this end, three teams from Qualcomm, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Rhevision Technology are perfecting their specific area of expertise. Qualcomm engineers specialize in miniaturization and know how to shepherd a product to market. Scientists from the Center for Nanotechnology at NASA's Ames Research Center have experience with chemical sensing on low-powered platforms, such as the International Space Station. And technologists from Rhevision have developed an artificial nose - a piece of porous silicon that changes colors in the presence of certain molecules, which can be read spectrographically.

Similarly, S&T is pursuing what's known as cooperative research and development agreements with four cell phone manufacturers: Qualcomm, LG, Apple and Samsung. These written agreements, which bring together a private company and a government agency for a specific project, often accelerate the commercialization of technology developed for government purposes. As a result, Dennis hopes to have 40 prototypes in about a year, the first of which will sniff out carbon monoxide and fire.

To be sure, Cell-All's commercialization may take several years. Yet the goal seems eminently achievable: Just as Gates once envisioned a computer on every desk in every home, so Dennis envisions a chemical sensor in every cell phone in every pocket, purse or belt holster.

And if it's not already the case, says Dennis, "Our smartphones may soon be smarter than we are."

Identification Of First Molecules That Protect Cells Against Deadly Ricin Poison

The results of a high-throughput screen of thousands of chemicals in search of agents that could protect cells, and ultimately people, against the deadly ricin poison has turned up two contenders. Even better, the compounds also render cells immune to the effects of Shiga-like toxins that are produced by infectious strains of E. coli bacteria among other pathogens, suggesting they may be useful against other threats to public health and in fact any toxin that takes the same route to enter cells. The findings are reported in the April 16th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication.

The discovery was made as part of a larger effort in France to address potential bio-terror weapons following the 9/11 attacks in the United States, said Daniel Gillet of Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives.

"There is a real need for countermeasures against ricin," one of the most toxic chemicals known to man, Gillet said. One of the reasons for concern is that ricin is not only deadly, but it can also be easy to come by. It is a natural ingredient in the seeds of castor oil plants, which are used in the industrial production of brake fluid, varnish, soap, ink and other products. "There are many plants growing and there is about one milligram of toxin per seed. Ricin is a byproduct of this industry."

Ricin first gained notoriety when it was used to assassinate the Bulgarian journalist Georgi Markov in 1978, notes Matthew Seaman and Andrew Peden in an accompanying commentary about the new findings. There are currently no known antidotes to ricin or Shiga toxins, and the possibility that ricin might be used in a bio-terror attack is a major concern.

Gillet said that other groups had looked for compounds to protect against ricin before without success. Some promising candidates didn't work consistently and others proved to be toxic in and of themselves.

In the new study, the researchers found two compounds that allowed cells to survive the assaults of ricin and Shiga-like toxins. The compounds work not by acting on the toxins themselves, but through their effects on the route the toxins follow as they travel through cells, they report. (Both ricin and Shiga-like toxins normally travel through cells by the so-called retrograde pathway. Ricin delivers its fatal blow after it escapes into the cytosol where it disrupts the ribosomal "factories" that produce all the proteins needed to do the work of the cell.)

The compounds, which they call Retro-1 and Retro-2, block the toxins' escape via a series of cellular components out into the cytosol after they've gained initial entry into cells, explained study coauthor Ludger Johannes of Institut Curie and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

The researchers include Bahne Stechmann, Centre de Recherche, Institut Curie, Paris, France, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France; Siau-Kun Bai, Centre de Recherche, Institut Curie, Paris, France, Unite´ Mixte de Recherche 144, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France; Emilie Gobbo, Institut de Biologie et de Technologies de Saclay, Direction des Sciences du Vivant, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives, Gif sur Yvette, France; Roman Lopez, Institut de Biologie et de Technologies de Saclay, Direction des Sciences du Vivant, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives, Gif sur Yvette, France; Goulven Merer, Institut de Biologie et de Technologies de Saclay, Direction des Sciences du Vivant, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives, Gif sur Yvette, France; Suzy Pinchard, Unite Controles de Bioactivite et Radioanalyse, French Health Products Safety Agency (Afssaps French Official Medicines Control Laboratory), Direction des Laboratoires et des Controles, Vendargues, France; Laetitia Panigai, Unite Controles de Bioactivite et Radioanalyse, French Health Products Safety Agency (Afssaps French Official Medicines Control Laboratory), Direction des Laboratoires et des Controles, Vendargues, France; Danie` le Tenza, Centre de Recherche, Institut Curie, Paris, France, Unite´ Mixte de Recherche 144, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France; Grac¸ a Raposo, Centre de Recherche, Institut Curie, Paris, France, Unite´ Mixte de Recherche 144, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France; Bruno Beaumelle, Centre d'etudes d'agents Pathogenes et Biotechnologies pour la Sante, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unite´ Mixte de Recherche 5236, Case 100, Universite´ Montpellier, Montpellier, France; Didier Sauvaire, Unite Controles de Bioactivite et Radioanalyse, French Health Products Safety Agency (Afssaps French Official Medicines Control Laboratory), Direction des Laboratoires et des Controles, Vendargues, France; Daniel Gillet, Institut de Biologie et de Technologies de Saclay, Direction des Sciences du Vivant, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives, Gif sur Yvette, France; Ludger Johannes, Centre de Recherche, Institut Curie, Paris, France, Unite´ Mixte de Recherche 144, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France; and Julien Barbier, Institut de Biologie et de Technologies de Saclay, Direction des Sciences du Vivant, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives, Gif sur Yvette, France.

Advanced Life Sciences' Restanza Effective Against Pathogen Representing Global Public Health And Bioterror Threat

Advanced Life Sciences Holdings, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: ADLS) announced positive results from an in vitro study assessing the efficacy of Restanza™ (cethromycin), its novel oral antibiotic, against 30 strains of Burkholderia pseudomallei, a serious, life-threatening bacterial pathogen. Restanza showed significant in vitro activity against clinical and environmental strains of B. pseudomallei as measured by minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC), the lowest concentration of an antimicrobial that will inhibit the visible growth of a microorganism after 24 hours of incubation. Restanza demonstrated antibacterial activity with MIC values ranging from 0.5 - 8 ug/ml and MIC90 of 4 ug/ml. Most notably, Restanza also demonstrated positive activity against strains that were resistant to a commonly used antibiotic, azithromycin, for which MIC values were all greater than 64 ug/ml. In a separate study, Restanza also demonstrated in vitro activity against 30 strains of Burkholderia mallei with MIC values ranging from 0.06 - 1 ug/ml and MIC90 of 0.5 ug/ml, which are comparable to azithromycin.

"These impressive data provide additional validation of Restanza's broad spectrum of antibacterial activity as a countermeasure for biodefense and highlight its ability to address serious bacterial infections that today are becoming untreatable due to the increasing public health threat of bacterial resistance to currently marketed antibiotics, especially in emerging markets," said Michael T. Flavin, Ph.D., chairman and chief executive officer of Advanced Life Sciences. "When these data are added to the substantial body of evidence from previously published studies showing Restanza's demonstrated potent activity in multi-drug resistant pneumonia, tuberculosis, malaria, Lyme disease and sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea, our belief in Restanza's breakthrough therapeutic potential is significantly strengthened."

About Burkholderia pseudomallei and Burkholderia mallei

Burkholderia pseudomallei and Burkholderia mallei are Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacteria, and are the causative agents of the diseases melioidosis and glanders, respectively. These bacteria can be found in contaminated water, soil and on market produce. They cause deadly infectious diseases endemic to Southeast Asia and northern Australia, and which may occur in other tropical and subtropical regions. Transmission to humans and animals occurs through direct contact with the organism via ingestion, inhalation, or through open wounds and skin abrasions. Treatment of these diseases requires prolonged therapy with antibiotics. Few antibiotics are effective against these diseases, and there is currently no effective vaccine. The severe course of infection, high mortality, aerosol infectivity and worldwide presence of these pathogens have resulted in their inclusion as potential agents of biological warfare or bioterrorism, and are listed on the Centers for Disease Control list as Category B bioterrorism agents.


Restanza as a Biodefense Countermeasure

Advanced Life Sciences is developing Restanza as a broad spectrum medical countermeasure for biodefense to combat multiple high priority bioterror agents, such as Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), Fransicella tularensis (tularemia), Yersinia pestis (plague) and Burkholderia pseudomallei (melioidosis). FDA has designated Restanza as an orphan drug for the post-exposure prophylactic treatment of inhalation anthrax, plague and tularemia, but the FDA has not yet approved the drug for marketing in this or any other indication.

Restanza is being developed as a biodefense countermeasure by Advanced Life Sciences to fill the unmet need identified by the U.S. Government. In a report entitled "World at Risk: The Report of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism," which was the result of a six-month study by the bipartisan Commission that Congress created pursuant to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, the Report states that a "potential gap in U.S. biological defenses is the threat of bioterrorist attacks with strains of anthrax that have been genetically modified to make them resistant to standard antibiotics. Given this potential threat, additional funding is needed for the National Institutes of Health and the private sector to develop new classes of antibiotics."

Advanced Life Sciences has received notice from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that it has completed its initial technical evaluation of the Company's $15 million funding proposal for advanced development of Restanza as a biodefense countermeasure and identified it as a scientifically and technically sound proposal important to program goals and objectives that may require further development and may be recommended for acceptance subject to funds availability. The Company was invited to submit additional information to allow BARDA to make a final determination on the appropriateness of the proposal to enter into contract negotiations.

About Advanced Life Sciences

Advanced Life Sciences is a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery, development and commercialization of novel drugs in the therapeutic areas of infection, cancer and respiratory diseases.

Any statements contained in this presentation that relate to future plans, events or performance are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among others, those relating to technology and product development, market acceptance, government regulation and regulatory approval processes, intellectual property rights and litigation, dependence on collaborative relationships, ability to obtain financing, competitive products, industry trends and other risks identified in Advanced Life Sciences' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Advanced Life Sciences undertakes no obligation to update or alter these forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Mobile Radiation Detection Vehicle For Ukraine

Nuclear and radioactive material from hospitals, power plants or industrial facilities can be abandoned, lost, or even stolen.

Early detection of these sources is essential to bring the material under control and protect the public from exposure to radiation, prevent environmental contamination or an act of terrorism.

Today, a state-of-the-art mobile radiation detection unit, destined for Ukraine, was handed over to the IAEA at its headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

The vehicle, which costs around half a million Euros, has been donated by Finland and Sweden and will be used to strengthen Ukraine's nuclear security efforts in advance of the UEFA EURO 2012 European football championship. The vehicle will assist Ukraine in its security strategy for the event.

The IAEA, as part of its nuclear security programme, is facilitating the transfer of the unit to Ukraine. In addition, the Agency will work with experts from Finland to provide training on how to operate the vehicle.

The IAEA helps its Member States to establish and maintain effective national nuclear security regimes.

Activities include strengthening border controls and planning for nuclear security at major public events, such as the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Olympics, 2007 Pan American Games in Brazil, 2010 South American Games in Colombia and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

At last week's Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC, leaders from 47 countries expressed strong support for the IAEA's "essential role" in the field of nuclear security.

Multi-Purpose 'Green' Decontaminants Developed By Military For Terrorist Attack Sites

Chemists with the United States military have developed a set of ultra-strength cleaners that could be used in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. The new formulas are tough enough to get rid of nerve gas, mustard gas, radioactive isotopes, and anthrax. But they are also non-toxic, based on ingredients found in foods, cosmetics, and other consumer products. A detailed evaluation of the cleansers appears in ACS' Industrial Engineering and Chemistry Research, a bi-monthly journal.

George Wagner and colleagues explained that chlorine- and lye-based decontamination agents have serious drawbacks. In addition to being potentially hazardous, they can react with chemical weapons and materials in the environment to form new toxic substances. If the military needed to decontaminate a large area, the runoff could harm people and the environment. To solve that problem, military scientists developed the Decon Green suite of decontamination agents. The main ingredients in each Decon Green formula are peroxides, the same substances that are in many household cleaners and whitening toothpaste. To bolster their effectiveness, the peroxides are mixed with bicarbonates or other non-toxic bases. That combination produces peroxyanions, highly reactive ions that can clean just about anything. It ensures that chemical weapons, like nerve gas, will break down completely.

Wagner describes putting the new cleaning agents through an exhaustive battery of tests. His team concluded that each formula can break down toxic chemicals, rather than just washing them away. They also showed that Decon Green is quite good at killing anthrax spores, and removing radioactive cesium and cobalt from smooth surfaces. One of the formulas that they tested can work in sub-zero temperatures. Another is a powder, which can be easily transported and mixed with water at the scene of an emergency. All but one of the ingredients in liquid Decon Green can be found in food, cosmetics, hygiene products, or vitamin pills.

Anthrax Unmasked For Immune Destruction

Anthrax-causing bacteria can be engineered to shed their invisibility cloaks, making it easier for the immune system to eradicate it, according to a new study published in Microbiology. The work could lead to new measures to treat anthrax infection in the event of a biological warfare attack.

Bacillus anthracis is a particularly lethal pathogen because it manages to escape recognition by the host's immune system by coating itself with a protective capsule around its surface. A key bacterial enzyme called capsule depolymerase (CapD) anchors the capsule to the cell surface. CapD can also cut and release some of the capsule into small fragments that are thought to interfere with specific parts of the immune system, offering further protection to the bacterium.

Scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases discovered that by engineering B. anthracis to produce higher-than-normal amounts of CapD, the protective capsule is chopped up and released as tiny fragments. The bacterium is left nearly completely unmasked and therefore vulnerable to immediate detection and destruction by the macrophage and neutrophil cells of the immune system. "By engineering B. anthracis to over-produce CapD, we are effectively turning the bacterium's own weapon on itself," explained Dr. Arthur Friedlander, one of the principal investigators in the study.

B. anthracis is the most commonly mentioned pathogen associated with biological warfare. This bacterium can form resilient spores that survive dormant in the environment for long periods of time. When these spores are aerosolised the bacterium can be very effectively distributed. After human inhalation the spores reactivate and cause severe infection that is usually fatal if left untreated.

Dr Friedlander believes his groups' findings could have significant clinical impact. "Many pathogenic bacteria, including B. anthracis, produce a capsule surrounding them that prevents the infected host from killing them, improving their chances of causing disease," he explained. "Understanding the mechanisms of virulence used by the anthrax bacterium is vital to developing medical countermeasures against it in the event of a biological attack."

Finding a way to encourage B. anthracis to unwittingly unmask itself, using the bacterium's own machinery would be a novel approach to eradicating the pathogen. "What is more, these measures may also be effective against strains of B. anthracis that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to antibiotics and/or existing vaccines,"

Saving Lives During Emergencies And Disasters Using Groundbreaking Space Technology

Targeted for use in emergencies, GEO-PICTURES will save lives and mitigate disaster effects on environment. In emergency situations striking humanity, environment and the civil public, it is of paramount importance to communicate from the field what has happened and where as quickly and accurately as possible so that appropriate actions can be taken. One cannot rely on an existing infrastructure except satellite communications for global coverage. GEO-PICTURES provides near-real-time input of pictures, video, sensors and assessment results worldwide. The novel emergency management platform will be developed in Oslo with several partners, and form a seamless solution hosted by United Nations (UNOSAT-UNITAR) on the CERN campus in Geneva. The European project is lead by AnsuR Technologies AS of Norway and co-funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework program.

Partners with specific expertise in rapid on-line mapping will produce real-time situational maps with a combination of space & terrestrial image and sensor information. Completely new and a missing link in operations this provides a significant contribution to larger and medium scale emergency management all over the world, and specifically in areas with poor communication infrastructure after the disasters.

GEO-PICTURES combines state of the art in satellite communication, navigation and earth observation, based on a core technology with geo-tagged image and sensor communication combined with latest satellite earth observation. A main challenge is high resolution photo communications without broadband infrastructure. An innovation award winning core concept already tested forms an excellent basis for enhancement, further integration and direct use in operations.

A key technology component is provided and developed further by AnsuR Technologies AS of Norway. Says Dr. Harald Skinnemoen, Founder and Managing Director of AnsuR: "We are extremely proud to have won this project in Europe in challenging competition, and to have been chosen to lead this prestigious European consortium. It shows that Norway has excellent technology for global disaster management, as well as a long tradition to care and contribute to humanitarian operations and efforts"

GEO-PICTURES allows a large number of accurate optical field observations, tagged with position, transferred via satellite-optimized protocols to a control center. Optical observations include photos, video, audio and sensors that measures temperature, moisture, wind etc; data that is helpful in emergency/disaster management and for improving interpretation of space based remote sensing data.

Continues Harald: "This is a very proud moment for AnsuR and our long and sustainable efforts in developing our technology. We are happy that we have been entrusted by the EU lead this project and for their confidence in our skills as project leaders and key technology developers in space based satellite and wireless image communications for disaster and emergency response.

GEO-PICTURES will also design small lightweight equipment based on the latest mobile technology; in particular the open Linux based platform Android. This will give disaster management experts an all-in-one tool for rapid damage assessment, in addition to the dedicated camera/computer/communication unit solutions. The consortium also considers small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) as a platform for observations.

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona is proud to be a member of this world class consortium. Our contribution to the project will be interdisciplinary in nature and will focus on different aspects of the target resilient technology for global disaster management. In particular, three research groups from three different Departments are involved. The research group GICI (Group of Interactive Coding of Images), with the Information and Communications Engineering Department is lead by Dr. Joan Serra-Sagristà and will focus on the compression and transmission of huge images through JPEG2000 and JPIP protocol to provide near real-time access to GMES data. The research group GRUMETS (Group of Methods and Applications in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems), with the Geography Department is lead by Prof. Dr. Xavier Pons and will focus on advancing Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) for emergency management, suggesting and testing solutions for fast standard web services implementations in addition to easy creation and updating of datasets on them. The research group of Wireless and Satellite Communications, with the Telecommunications and Systems Engineering Department is lead by Dr. M. A. Vázquez-Castro and will focus on how to guarantee low-cost and robust communication access and wireless and satellite networking from and to the emergency/disaster area.

Being able to contribute to such an important field naturally triggers particular interest and enthusiasm. We believe that the impact for Spain will be important given the fact the increasing interest of technologies and solutions for disaster management.

GEO-PICTURES can be used for disaster management worldwide, and the solution as in an early form already contributed to disaster management in Haiti after the recent Earthquake.

Computer-based agroterrorism awareness courses

Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center (KIPRC), part of the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, has collaborated with the Kentucky Department of Agriculture (KDA) and the UK College of Agriculture to create two online courses on agroterrorism education. Scheduled for release in August 2005, the courses illustrate the potential for terrorist attacks on crops, livestock, and the U.S. food supply.

According to Mark Schneider, KIPRC Director of Technology and program manager for Terrorism Response and Preparedness (TRAP), "Agroterrorism has already occurred in the U.S. and, since 9/11, seems more likely to occur again."

Schneider developed the original online terrorism courses for Kentucky first responders. After they were available on the Internet, users from across the country and overseas began logging on. The opportunity to collaborate with experts in the Department of Agriculture and Cooperative Extension Service was a natural extension of the TRAP initiative. The project follows a series of successful online terrorism preparedness courses produced by KIPRC.

The shared goals for the new program are increasing awareness, and thereby increasing the pool of "first detectors," in two demographics - young people in 4-H and FFA, and county extension personnel. It became apparent that the courses could also serve other audiences, Schneider said.

The agroterrorism courses are available on CD-ROM to provide extra bandwidth for interactive features. Students will learn from videos, animation, and interactive exercises. Quizzes and course examinations test students' comprehension of the topics. Certification allows graduates to demonstrate their achievement to teachers and employers.

Both courses - General Awareness and Extension Awareness include five modules: Introduction to Agroterrorism; Natural and Intentional Events; Crops; Livestock; and Prevention and Preparedness. They will be available, free of charge, on one CD-ROM.

To inquire about the courses or order a free CD-ROM visit the TRAP web site at kiprc.uky.edu/trap.

Sensor could detect concealed weapons without X-rays

A new sensor being patented by Ohio State University could be used to detect concealed weapons or help pilots see better through rain and fog.

Unlike X-ray machines or radar instruments, the sensor doesn't have to generate a signal to detect objects - it spots them based on how brightly they reflect the natural radiation that is all around us every day.

There is always a certain amount of radiation - light, heat, and even microwaves - in the environment. Every object - the human body, a gun or knife, or an asphalt runway - reflects this ambient radiation differently.

Paul Berger, professor of electrical and computer engineering and physics at Ohio State and head of the team that is developing the sensor, likened this reflection to the way glossy and satin-finish paints reflect light differently to the eye.

Once the sensor is further developed, it could be used to scan people or luggage without subjecting them to X-rays or other radiation. And if the sensor were embedded in an airplane nose, it might help pilots see a runway during bad weather.

The Ohio State sensor isn't the only ambient radiation sensor under development, but it is the only one Berger knows of that is compatible with silicon - a feature that makes it relatively inexpensive and easy to work with.

Berger describes the sensor in the current issue of the journal IEEE Electron Device Letters. His coauthors include Niu Jin, who performed this work for his doctorate at Ohio State and is now at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Ronghua Yu and Sung-Yong Chung, both graduate students at Ohio State; Phillip E. Thompson of the Naval Research Laboratory; and Patrick Fay of the University of Notre Dame.

Berger said that the new sensor grew out of his team's recent invention of a device called a tunnel diode that transmits large amounts of electricity through silicon.

He was reading about another team's ambient radiation sensor when he realized that their device worked like one of his diodes -- only in reverse.

"It's basically just a really bad tunnel diode," he explained. "I thought, heck, we can make a bad diode! We made lots of them back when we were figuring out how to make good ones."

As it turns out, a really bad tunnel diode can be a really good sensor.

Diodes are one-way conductors that typically power amplifiers for devices such as stereo speakers. Berger's diode is unique because it is compatible with mainstream silicon, so computer chip makers could manufacture it cheaply and integrate it with existing technology easily.

The new sensor is essentially one of these tunnel diodes with a strong short circuit running backwards and very little tunneling current running forwards.

Thompson prepared the films of layered semiconductor material, and the Ohio State team fabricated and tested the sensors.

The way engineers measure the effectiveness of such sensors is to draw a line graph charting the amount of current passing through them. Then they measure the curvature of the line at the point where the current is zero. A steep curve indicates that a sensor is working well, so the higher this so-called "curvature coefficient" is, the better.

In the laboratory, prototypes of the Ohio State sensor averaged a curvature coefficient of 31. While one other research team has produced a sensor with a coefficient of 39, that sensor is made of antimony - an exotic metal that is hard to work with and not directly compatible with the silicon circuit that surrounds the sensor element, Berger pointed out.

"So our raw sensor performance isn't quite as good, but our ultimate performance should be superior because you could integrate our device directly with any conventional microchip readout circuitry that you wanted to build," he said.

The team that is making the antimonide sensor has succeeded in combining it with a camera system; the pictures look a lot like X-ray images, with bodies and clothing appearing as dim outlines and metal objects such as guns standing out in sharp relief.

That camera system has performance issues that Berger thinks could be solved with his silicon-compatible design. Still, the image has inspired him to think big about where his work could go in the future. Combat pilots, for instance, could potentially use this technology to stealthily identify other aircraft as friend or foe.

"If you got a fast enough response and a high-resolution image, I wonder if you might be able tell one kind of aircraft from another without revealing your location to the enemy," he said.

The National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research funded this work.

Funding the 'war on terror' could cost millions of lives, British Medical Journal

Funding the "war on terror" could cost the lives of millions of Americans, says a senior doctor in this week's BMJ.

Professor Erica Frank argues that the US government's decision to shift funds away from basic public health services towards preventing terrorism has cut funding for common diseases and for disaster relief, resulting in enormous numbers of unnecessary deaths.

"The most recent effects of these diversions of funding have been seen in the unfolding tragedy of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the surrounding area," she writes.

On September 11 2001, 3400 people died because of four horrific, intentional plane crashes. On the same day, 5200 Americans died from common diseases. A similar number of American deaths from these same causes has happened every day since then, she adds.

Concerns about disproportionate funding in the US have been building for some time. As early as 2002, many public health workers thought that the Bush administration's plan for smallpox vaccination was a misguided redirection of public health funds.

Although pressure to provide mass immunisation against smallpox has subsided, preparedness for bioterrorism still seems magnified well beyond its proportional risk. For example, in September 2002 New York was awarded $1.3m to reduce heart disease, the leading killer of New Yorkers, while $34m was awarded for bioterrorism preparedness in the state.

FBI funds designated for investigating fraud in health care also seem to have shifted to other purposes, including fighting terrorism, and military funds for cleaning up polluted sites and meeting clean air standards have been proposed for capping and exemption by the Pentagon.

These observations are not intended to diminish the tragedies of 11 September 2001 or 7 July 2005 or other terrorist actions, nor to negate the importance of developing effective ways of making sure such tragedies are not repeated, says the author.

It is certainly justifiable for governments to appropriate substantial funds to prevent potential future threats to our security. But public funding for current threats should not be compromised.

"Predictable tragedies happen every day. We know strategies to reduce deaths from tobacco, alcohol, poor diet, unintentional injuries, and other predictable causes. And we know that millions of people will die unless we protect the population against these routine causes of death," she concludes.

Car crashes kill 400 times more people than International Terrorism does in Developed Countries

The death toll from car crashes in developed countries is almost 400 times greater than the number of deaths caused by international terrorism, reports a study in the latest issue of Injury Prevention.

In 2001 as many people died every 26 days on US roads as died in the terrorist bombings of 9/11, the study shows.

The authors compared the number of deaths from international terrorism and car crashes in the 29 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) between 1994 and 2003.

They used the US State Department Counterterrorism Office database for deaths caused by international terrorist activity, and the OECD International Road Transport Accident Database for 2000 and 2001 for those caused by car crashes.

For the 29 OECD countries, 33 acts of international terrorism occurred during the study period, accounting for 3064 deaths, excluding those of the perpetrators.

The attacks all occurred in 10 of the OECD countries, with the highest number of fatal attacks in Turkey.

The annual death rate from car crashes was around 390 times higher than the death toll from international terrorism.

Among the 10 countries where people had died as a result of international terrorism, the ratio of road deaths to terrorist deaths ranged from 142 times greater in the US to over 55,000 times greater in Poland.

Deaths from car crashes were equivalent to the impact of a 9/11 attack every nine day, for all the countries put together.

The authors cite other evidence, suggesting that the number of Americans who avoided flying after 9/11 and were subsequently killed in car crashes was higher than the total number of passengers who died on the four 9/11 flights.

The authors are at pains not to minimise the emotional, economic, and political impacts of terrorism. But they point out there is a huge difference in the scale of death between terrorism and car crashes. And the evidence to inform policy is also much greater for car crashes.

"Policy makers need to consider these issues when allocating resources towards preventable interventions that can save lives from these two avoidable causes of mortality," they conclude.

What Is Anthrax?

Anthrax is an infection caused by a bacterium. (The plural of bacterium is bacteria). The bacterium is called Bacillus Anthracis.

Anthrax is the name of the infection or the disease. Bacillus Anthracis is the name of the bacterium that causes the infection.

Bacillus Anthracis exists in animals that eat grass, such as cows and sheep. It is most commonly found in the farming areas of Asia, South America, Africa, the Caribbean and southern and eastern Europe.

Bacillus Anthracis makes spores. These spores can stay in the soil for a very long time - they lay dormant. When the environment is right, they can germinate and cause infection - anthrax. They ideally germinate and cause infection in the:

1. Skin (Cutaneous anthrax)
Can be treated successfully with antibiotics if administered early enough

Most common. Accounts for 95% of all anthrax infections. People at risk of infection may work in abbatoirs (slaughterhouses), tanning workshops, places preparing wool, hides or leather. The worker can become infected if he/she has a skin cut.
There is only a risk if the animals had been infected.

Symptoms are usually an ulcer that develops on the skin, about 1 to 3 centimetres wide. Within a week the centre of the ulcer becomes black. Without treatment, a complication may be blood poisoning (20% death rate).

2. Lungs (Inhalational anthrax)
Can be treated successfully with antibiotics if administered early enough

The bigger spores get stuck in the windpipe or throat. The smaller ones end up in the lungs. Haemorrhaging takes place as well as tissue decay.

Symptoms are similar to a mild flu, which may include fatigue, weakness, high temperature, dry cough and a pain in the chest. Without treatment breathing becomes much more difficult and the patient's lungs start to bleed. If allowed to reach this stage the anthrax is generally fatal.

3. Intestinal Anthrax
Can be treated successfully with antibiotics if administered early enough

This type of anthrax is a very uncommon type of food poisoning. It can happen after eating contaminated meat.

Symptoms include nausea, high temperature, loss of appetite and vomiting. This develops into stomach pains, vomiting blood and severe diarrhoea.

This is the most fatal of the three anthraxes.

In all three cases the patient does not need to be quarantined.

Although we hear a lot about anthrax in the news, it is in fact, a very rare disease. It infects animals much more than it does humans. No one has died from anthrax infection in the UK since 1974 - then it was a case of inhalational anthrax (lungs).

There have been human cases of cutaneuous anthrax in the UK, but nobody died from it.

Who should get vaccinated against anthrax?

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (USA) has recommended anthrax vaccination for the following groups:

-- Persons who work directly with the organism in the laboratory -- Persons who work with imported animal hides or furs in areas where standards are insufficient to prevent exposure to anthrax spores.

-- Persons who handle potentially infected animal products in high-incidence areas. (Incidence is low in the United States, but veterinarians who travel to work in other countries where incidence is higher should consider being vaccinated.)

-- Military personnel deployed to areas with high risk for exposure to the organism (as when it is used as a biological warfare weapon).

The anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program in the U.S. Army Surgeon General's Office can be reached at 1-877-GETVACC (1-877-438-8222). www.anthrax.osd.mil

Pregnant women should be vaccinated only if absolutely necessary.

Why is anthrax so often in the news?

Biological weapons are maintained by several countries around the world. Use of these weapons could cause widespread illness among unprotected military forces.

Anthrax is the biological weapon most likely to be encountered by military personnel because it is extremely lethal, easy to produce in large quantities, easy to store and not too difficult to develop as a biological weapon.

The worry today is that terrorists may one day use anthrax as a weapon.

The Greatest Wrinkle Remover And One Of The World's Most Potent Biological Weapons: Botulism Toxin's Insidious Route Into Nerve Cells

Botulinum neurotoxin A can be either the greatest wrinkle remover or one of the world's most potent biological weapons. To perform either job, however, the toxin must first find a way to enter cells.

But understanding how the toxin -- one of seven neurotoxins produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum -- enters nerve cells has proved elusive for scientists. Despite a decade-long search for the receptor by labs around the world, researchers had come up empty handed.

Now, a research team led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researcher Edwin R. Chapman reports that it has identified the cellular receptor for botulinum neurotoxin A. The group's work was published in the March 16, 2006, edition of ScienceXpress, which provides electronic publication of selected Science papers in advance of print. The finding offers important new insights that suggest how the toxin shuts down nerve cells with deadly efficiency.

In the clinic, the toxin, which is also known as botox, is used to treat forehead wrinkles, migraine headaches, urinary retention, eye muscle disorders, and excessive sweating. The same toxin also has more nefarious uses, and is considered a potential bioterror threat because it can kill people by paralyzing motor nerves in diaphragm muscles, causing breathing to stop. Lack of knowledge about the identity of the cell surface receptor that botulism toxin A uses to invade nerve cells has hindered the development of new antidotes to the toxin.

"People thought that since these were the most potent toxins known to humans, it would be easy to find the receptors," said Chapman, whose HHMI laboratory is at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. However, only a handful of proteins had been identified that appeared to interact with the toxin. But none of these proteins turned out to be the receptor, he said.

According to Chapman, researchers had long known how botulinum neurotoxin A attacks the nerve cell's internal molecular machinery. But the identity of the neuronal surface protein that the toxin recognized and used to gain entry into the cell was unknown.

"We decided to study the entry route used by these toxins first," said Chapman. Using cultured neurons and mouse diaphragms as model systems, postdoctoral fellow Min Dong and Felix Yeh in Chapman's laboratory, revealed that the neurotoxin enters neurons when empty synaptic vesicles are being recycled from the cell surface to the cell's interior. Synaptic vesicles are sac-like cargo carriers in neurons that haul neurotransmitters from the cell's interior to the synapses, which are the junctions between neurons. At the synapse, neurotransmitters are released, triggering nerve impulse in neighboring neurons.

"Our uptake experiments with all the toxins showing that many of them are taken up through synaptic vesicles made our life simple, because almost all synaptic vesicle proteins had already been identified by our colleagues. Furthermore, there are only a handful of synaptic vesicle proteins that contain domains that are exposed on the cell surface," said Chapman.

Thus, when Dong and Yeh screened the major vesicle proteins for binding to the neurotoxin, they found a high level of specific binding to one called SV2. Furthermore, the researchers found they could block the toxin's action in neurons by adding the piece of the SV2 protein that they had discovered was the SV2 protein's binding site to the toxin.

The researchers then proceeded to study the interaction between the toxin and SV2 in cell cultures, tissues and in whole mice. Co-author Roger Janz of the University of Texas-Houston Medical School supplied the Wisconsin researchers with knockout mice that lacked certain versions of SV2. The Wisconsin group found that the neurons that lack SV2 do not take up botox, but they do take up the toxin when SV2 is expressed. These findings demonstrated that SV2 is the functional receptor for Botox, Chapman said.

Other key mouse experiments were done in the laboratory of co-authors Eric Johnson and William Tepp in the Food Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin. They found that mice engineered to lack versions of the SV2 protein showed significantly longer survival times than did normal mice when exposed to the toxin.

The identification of SV2 as the neurotoxin A receptor raises the possibility of designing protective drugs that would interfere with the toxin's action, said Chapman. He said his laboratory will aid such efforts by concentrating on developing a more detailed understanding of the molecular interaction between the toxin and its receptor.

Chapman said that this finding and others' studies on the botulinum neurotoxins have revealed why they are models of lethal efficiency. "The cool thing is that the neurotoxin receptor is on actively recycling synaptic vesicles, so the toxin targets only active neurons and shuts them down," he said. "There is no wasted toxin, because once a nerve terminal is shut down, it doesn't take up any more toxin. That leaves more toxin around to enter nerve terminals that have yet to be inhibited. That's pretty clever."

Crime, Terrorism And The Drug Supply

The traditional drug supply chain is often considered to be simple and safe: the manufacturer makes the drug, sends it to wholesalers, who distribute it to pharmacies. Yet vulnerabilities provide opportunities for criminals and terrorists to exploit it for their own reprehensible purposes.

Counterfeits and the Gray Market

Roughly 10 percent of drugs go through the secondary, or "gray" market, where drugs can change hands many times before reaching the patient, representing a gaping drug supply vulnerability. With 3.5 billion prescriptions filled annually, approximately 350 million prescriptions are potentially affected.

This vulnerability has resulted in patient harm. Investigative reporter Katharine Eban in her book Dangerous Doses exposed the underworld of fake drugs and gray market sales from car trunks and strip clubs by convicted illicit drug dealers, netting them millions of dollars, while subjecting unsuspecting patients to deadly fakes.

The Internet

Around the world, criminals have used the Internet to infiltrate the drug supply on a large scale. International agencies have issued health warnings that drugs purchased via the Internet are largely fake or tainted.

Internet operations manufacturing 500,000 fake pills a day and yielding millions of dollars in sales have been found. Customs and Border Protection have seized thousands of fakes, including recent seizures of fake Tamiflu. Health agencies around the world note that international organized crime and, in fact, governments such as North Korea, are entering into this high profit, low risk trade. Rep. Mark Souter, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, held hearings on Taliban strategies to induce an anthrax scare so that citizens would buy Taliban-made deadly "treatment" via the Internet, making the West pay for its own demise.

Approaches to Crime and Terrorism

When addressing crime and terrorism, exploiting the drug supply must be interdisciplinary. Technology investment is vital. Radio-frequency ID (RFID) tags are being developed and pilot tested to track and authenticate medicines. But technology cannot be the only solution, since RFID - as well as other promising technology - only track packaging, not product.

Coordination of technology must occur with intelligence activities, including FBI and Customs and Border Protection investigations and international data sharing efforts. A reporting system that integrates Web, e-mail, and other data entry available to agencies, patients, and providers to report suspect drugs, would be ideal for intelligence, GIS thematic mapping, and investigation purposes.

Finally, patient and provider awareness is critical. Patients must understand the risks associated with suspect sources, and providers must have a high index of suspicion for fake medications when therapeutic failure occurs for no apparent reason.

Everything you wanted to know about Ricin

What is ricin?

Ricin is a stable toxin easily made from the mash that remains after processing Castor beans (Ricinus communis) for oil. Castor Oil was once used as an oral laxative, but is now used mainly as an industrial lubricant and for preparing leather products.

Castor beans are grown agriculturally worldwide and the plants grow wildly in arid parts of the United States. Castor beans are slightly larger than pinto beans, darkly colored with light mottling, and have a small light-brown cap at one end.

They have been described as looking like blood-engorged ticks. The beans are not normally used as food. Poisoning can occur following inhalation, ingestion, or injection of ricin toxin from Castor beans.

Who gets ricin poisoning?

While there has been relatively little human experience with the ricin toxin, poisoning can occur following inhalation, ingestion, or injection of the toxin.

Ricin poisoning has occurred in suicide attempts, following accidental ingestion of castor beans, and in acts of bioterrorism and assasination.

What are the symptoms of ricin poisoning?

Eating Castor beans or ricin-contaminated material causes diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, internal bleeding, liver and kidney failure, and circulatory failure. Rapid heartbeat can also occur.

If the castor beans are swallowed whole, the poisoning will be less severe than if the beans are chewed. Breathing dust that contains ricin causes cough, weakness, fever, nausea, muscle aches, difficult breathing, chest pain, and cyanosis (blue skin).

Breathing the dust can result in respiratory and circulatory failure. Exposure to concentrated ricin particles in the air is only likely during an act of bioterrorism where large numbers of people would likely experience the signs and symptoms in one place and time.

Injection of ricin toxin would likely result in tissue (muscle) necrosis near the injection site, probable multiple organ failure, and death. All routes of exposure are very dangerous and can result in death.

How soon do symptoms appear?

The time from exposure to ricin toxin to onset of symptoms can range from less than 1 hour to 12 hours or greater. Symptoms of poisoning from eating ricin-contaminated food or Castor beans can occur within 2-3 hours.

Inhalation of ricin-contaminated particles can cause symptoms within 3 hours. Sometimes the symptoms can be delayed many hours.

How is ricin poisoning spread?

Ricin poisoning is not contagious, and is not spread from one person to another. A person must be exposed to ricin by inhalation, ingestion, or injection to be poisoned.

What is the treatment for ricin poisoning?

Antitoxins are not available for treatment of ricin poisoning. Hospital care is necessary to support the victim and treat the effects of ricin toxin.

What happens if ricin poisoning is not treated?

In cases of severe ricin poisoning death can be caused by kidney failure, respiratory failure, circulatory collapse, or fluid loss.

How can ricin poisoning be prevented?

Do not grow the Castor bean plant indoors or in areas where people may come in contact with the beans.

Castor beans have been described as very attractive due to their unique mottling patterns and may be of interest to curious children. Do not eat unidentified seeds or beans. Do not drink Castor Oil for medicinal purposes.

If you notice any of the symptoms or signs of illness described above, seek medical help immediately.

Balancing Terrorism Prevention And Human Rights

A new research symposium investigates the interrelationships between terrorism and governmental respect for human rights, regarding both how political authorities respond to terrorist violence and how human rights abuses can predict subsequent terrorist attacks. Responding to a lack of systematic evidence and granular data on the linkages between these two areas, the symposium addresses issues both domestic and international, ranging from public opinion on torture to the Guantanamo detention facility, sexual abuse in Israeli prisons, and the American profile abroad.

The research appears in the July issue of PS: Political Science and Politics, a journal of the American Political Science Association. The symposium was guest edited by James A. Piazza, an associate professor of political science at Pennsylvania State University, and James Igoe Walsh, an associate professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Piazza and Walsh's groundbreaking preliminary study uses empirical analysis to investigate the effects of different types of human rights abuses on a state's susceptibility to terrorist attack. Categorizing abuse into torture, political imprisonment, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings, the authors conclude that the restriction of citizens' rights actually fuel terrorism. However, they also find that governmental repression in response to terrorism is limited, suggesting that human rights advocates might more effectively focus on other areas of threat.

The symposium includes six additional articles. Emilie Hafner-Burton (University of California-San Diego) and Jacob Shapiro (Princeton University) examine the validity of commonly held beliefs that terrorism creates strong pressures on governments - especially democracies - to restrict human rights, and that these restrictions are both immoral and counterproductive to curbing terrorism. Will H. Moore (Florida State University) uses democratic theory to explore state responses of repression to terrorist activity. Adopting a similar theoretical approach, Michael Desch (University of Notre Dame) draws parallels between the Obama and Bush administrations' responses to counterterrorism policy, arguing that both presidents have pursued essentially the same course. Mia Bloom (Penn State University) uses the framework of a descriptive case study of Israeli-occupied lands to investigate how the abuse of women by occupying powers influences local support for insurgents and terrorists.

Several articles introduce crucial new datasets to the discourse that will be invaluable in later research and policy formulation. Jennifer Holmes and Linda Camp Keith (University of Texas at Dallas) use independent data to investigate the effects of the September 11 attacks on U.S. asylum policy, particularly as it pertains to applicants who speak Arabic or come from countries that house members of Al Qaeda. Paul Gronke and Darius Rejali (Reed College) offer a new set of data about public opinion on torture at the time of the 2008 election that shows that, despite the common assumption, the U.S. public did not favor the use of torture until six months into the Obama administration. Their article vigorously addresses the question of how opinion came to be so badly misrepresented in the media.

The scholarship offered by this symposium poses a significant contribution not only to academic circles, but also to the policymaking community. New data regarding public opinion and policy outcomes in the face of terrorist activity and theoretical investigations of the underpinnings of national policy decisions allow more informed future discourse. Given the high stakes of counterterrorism decisions, such research is crucial for advancing broad understanding and the attainment of national goals.

Unique THz 'Fingerprints' Will Identify Hidden Explosives From A Distance

A major breakthrough in remote wave sensing by a team of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers opens the way for detecting hidden explosives, chemical, biological agents and illegal drugs from a distance of 20 meters.

The new, all-optical system, using terahertz (THz) wave technology, has great potential for homeland security and military uses because it can "see through" clothing and packaging materials and can identify immediately the unique THz "fingerprints" of any hidden materials.

Terahertz waves occupy a large segment of the electromagnetic spectrum between the infrared and microwave bands which can provide imaging and sensing technologies not available through conventional technologies such as x-ray and microwave.

"The potential of THz wave remote sensing has been recognized for years, but practical application has been blocked by the fact that ambient moisture interferes with wave transmission," says Xi-Cheng Zhang, Ph.D., director of the Center for THz Research at Rensselaer.

Dr. Zhang, the J. Erik Jonsson Professor of Science at Rensselaer, is lead author of a paper to be published in the journal Nature Photonics. Titled "Broadband terahertz wave remote sensing using coherent manipulation of fluorescence from asymmetrically ionized gases," the paper describes the new system in detail.

The "all optical" technique for remote THz sensing uses laser induced fluorescence, essentially focusing two laser beams together into the air to remotely create a plasma that interacts with a generated THz wave. The plasma fluorescence carries information from a target material to a detector where it is instantly compared with material spectrum in the THz "library," making possible immediate identification of a target material.

"We have shown that you can focus a 800 nm laser beam and a 400 nm laser beam together into the air to remotely create a plasma interacting with the THz wave, and use the plasma fluorescence to convey the information of the THz wave back to the local detector," explains Dr. Zhang.

Repeated terrorist threats and the thwarted Christmas Eve bombing attempt aboard a Northwest airline heightened interest in developing THz remote sensing capabilities, especially from Homeland Security and the Defense Department, which have funded much of the Rensselaer research.

Because THz radiation transmits through almost anything that is not metal or liquid, the waves can "see" through most materials that might be used to conceal explosives or other dangerous materials, such as packaging, corrugated cardboard, clothing, shoes, backpacks and book bags.

Unlike x-rays, THz radiation poses little or no health threat. However, the technique cannot detect materials that might be concealed in body cavities.

"Our technology would not work for owners of an African diamond mine who are interested in the system to stop workers from smuggling out diamonds by swallowing them," Dr. Zhang says.

Though most of the research has been conducted in a laboratory setting, the technology is portable and eventually could be used to check out backpacks or luggage abandoned in an airport for explosives, other dangerous materials or for illegal drugs. On battlefields, it could detect where explosives are hidden.

The fact that each substance has its own unique THz "fingerprint" will show exactly what compound or compounds are being hidden, a capability that is expected to have multiple important and unexpected uses. In the event of a chemical spill, for instance, remote sensing could identify the composition of the toxic mix. Since sensing is remote, no individuals will be needlessly endangered.

"I think I can predict that, within a few years, the THz science and technology will become more available and ready for industrial and defense-related use," predicts Dr. Zhang.

Co-authors of the Nature Photonics paper are Rensselaer's Jingle Liu, Ph.D, Research Associate Professor Jianming Dai, and Professor See-Leang Chin of Quebec's University of Laval.

Discovery Networks Hostage-Taking A Rare Terror Event

A new report by terrorism researchers at the University of Maryland concludes that the deadly hostage-taking incident at the Discovery Communications headquarters in suburban Washington, D.C. meets the criteria of a terrorist act - a rare one for media organizations and the nation's capital region. Hostage-taking, though, is a familiar pattern in capital-region terror, the researchers add.

The report from the University of Maryland's START Center - the federally funded National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism - also finds that there has never been any environmentally inspired suicide eco-terrorism in the United States, and probably the world, but draws no conclusions about whether that's what occurred in this case.

START maintains the world's most comprehensive unclassified database of terrorism incidents, and is designed to make it useful to scientists and policy-makers seeking to understand the behavior of terrorists and terror organizations. The report is based on an analysis of this data.

"The use of violence by radical environmentalists is extremely rare, and usually the target is property not people," says Gary LaFree, who directs the University of Maryland START Consortium and its Global Terrorism Database. "We'll count this incident as terrorism - the perpetrator has a history of politically inspired activism and his tactics were violent."

START researchers analyzed the following information in the Global Terrorism Database, which includes more than 85,000 incidents worldwide since 1970:

• Terrorist activity in the District of Columbia and Maryland
• Media targets in the U.S.
• Suicide terrorism in the U.S.
• Hostage situations in the U.S.

The full report is available online here.

TOP FINDINGS

• Given the nature of James Lee's political and social goals and his use of illegal force, this incident would qualify as a terrorist incident, according to the definition of START's Global Terrorism Database (GTD).
• Although hostage-takings like the one in Silver Spring are extremely rare globally, representing less than one percent of all terrorist attacks worldwide since 1970, three have occurred in the District of Columbia.
• Environmentally motivated perpetrators, like the gunman in this event, have been active in the United States since the 1970s.
• Environmentally motivated attacks almost always have no casualties but have caused tens of millions of dollars in property damage.
• In the event that the Discovery Communications attacker indeed wore explosives that he intended to detonate, this would be the first recorded incident of environmentally motivated suicide terrorism in the United States, and likely the first worldwide.
• Journalist and media targets are rare in the U.S. Prior to the events at the Discovery building, the most recent terrorist attacks on media targets in the United States were the 2001 anthrax attacks, which included targets such as The New York Post, CBS, ABC, and NBC, in New York, and American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, Florida.

GLOBAL TERRORISM DATABASE

The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) is an open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world from 1970 through 2008 (with annual updates planned for the future). Unlike many other event databases, the GTD includes systematic data on domestic as well as international terrorist attacks and now includes more than 87,000 cases. For each GTD incident, information is available on the date and location of the incident, the weapons used and nature of the target, the number of casualties, and - when identifiable - the group or individual responsible.

START CONSORTIUM

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) is a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence based at the University of Maryland. START uses state-of-the-art theories, methods, and data from the social and behavioral sciences to improve understanding of the origins, dynamics, and social and psychological impacts of terrorism.